Heinous by Debra Webb Read Free Book Online Page B

to keep Dr. Baron waiting after all.”
    Lori met her gaze over the roof of her shiny red car. “Are you letting him off the hook that easily?”
    “For now.”
    As Lori backed out of the drive, Jess reached for her cell. “I’ll let Dr. Baron know we’re on our way.” Before she could open her contacts list, Hayes called. Jess hit the speaker option. “I hope you have good news for me, Lieutenant. I have you on speaker. Detective Wells is with me.”
    “The good news is Amanda Brownfield was telling the truth.”
    “Go on, Lieutenant.”
    “A man wearing a ski mask picked her up at the club. Her description was on target.”
    Surely the vehicle the man was driving was on the video as well. “Did you get anything on the car?”
    “That’s the bad news. The driver must have noticed the security cameras because he backed all the way out of range, keeping the license plate away from the camera.”
    Not the news she wanted to hear. “You can see what kind of car he was driving, right?” At least that would give them something.
    “Oh yeah,” Hayes confirmed. “He’s driving a black Infiniti.”
    Jess and Lori exchanged a knowing look. “Thank you, Lieutenant. We need a copy of that footage.”
    “Taking care of it now.”
    The call ended and Jess tucked her phone away.
    “So our dark-haired friend is back.” Lori eased into traffic on Willow Street.
    “Looks that way.”
    Jess had first spotted the dark-haired man in the Infiniti about a month ago. He’d nudged the back bumper of her car. When she’d looked in the rearview mirror, he’d been holding a handgun aimed at her. As he’d driven away, she’d received a text from Spears.
Bang! Do you like this game so far?
    She’d spotted the dark-haired man several times after that day, watching her and delivering the occasional message from Spears, until about two weeks ago when he’d seemed to vanish.
    “He’s been MIA for the past couple of weeks,” Lori said, echoing Jess’s thought.
    “I guess he’s back.”
    “Better the devil you know.”
    Spears followers seemed to come out of nowhere. There was no way of recognizing those faces of evil coming at them until a message was delivered, usually with a body.
    Jess might not know his name, but, as Lori pointed out, this follower she could at least see coming.
     
    Jefferson County Coroner’s Office, 5:20 p.m.
    “Someone wanted the good reverend to bleed out a little more slowly, but not slow enough to risk anyone finding him in time to save him.”
    Jess studied the slash to Gordon Henshaw’s femoral artery in his left thigh. “What do you mean?”
    Sylvia picked up a scalpel. “If you want the blood to flow quickly without impediment, you cut the artery at an angle so the walls can’t attempt to close themselves. In this instance, your killer was very careful. He made a nice straight incision. The artery walls immediately contracted, attempting to restrict the blood flow, which slowed exsanguination by several minutes.”
    Anger expanded in Jess’s chest. Spears made this man suffer... to send her a message. Spears was a sociopathic serial killer. Causing pain and death gave him pleasure, but this victim—this poor old man—was chosen because he was connected to her past.
    Your aunt says you’ve been getting into fights at school.
Jess remembered sitting in Preacher Gordon’s office and explaining how the other kid had hit her first. She’d done exactly what her new friend, Buddy Corlew, had told her to do. Her aunt, Wanda Newsom, had hauled her all the way to Irondale to see Henshaw.
    Jess blocked the sights and sounds from her childhood. With far too many questions and not nearly enough answers about her past, there was at least one she had the power to resolve. “I need DNA testing on Amanda Brownfield.”
    Sylvia arched an eyebrow in blatant speculation. “Do we have a comparison source?”
    “We do. You can take the necessary sample now.”
    Sylvia held Jess’s gaze for a long